browser life

rants, raves, laughs and a dedication to awareness about chronic illness and having a life despite it

Monday, January 10, 2005

Rave of the Day for January 10th:

As I've mentioned here before, I've worked the night shift for about a decade now, so I know absolutely nothing about what's on tv. The few occasions I have bothered to tune in on a weekend or a day off sick have for the most part been a complete waste of time.

But FINALLY, I've found a prime time network televlsion show worth raving about! It may have been on for quite awhile, so I may be the last person in America to not know about it.

Dan and I were waiting for a phone call last night and idly flipping channels. It was a little after 7pm, and on ABC, Dan saw something he recognized and said, "Hey, you'll like this one. It's pretty cool." It was called "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition".

I normally would get up and leave the room during anything remotely "reality" related. I was coerced into watching "Survivor" a few years ago and loathed it. And I don't like trendy home design shows. But this was something different; it got my attention in less than a minute.

There was this widowed woman in Washington state with three daughters who lost nearly everything she owned in a house fire. The only thing left standing on the property were a shed and an outhouse. The insurance didn't cover the fire, and incredibly, that poor woman still had to pay the mortgage on a house that had burned down! There was nothing she could do but move her daughters into the shed, which was barely large enough for some bunk beds. They had lived in the shed for nine months when the "Extreme Makeover" guys showed up.

The lady and her daughters were sent all the way to Disney World for a vacation for a week. The host of the show (who, by the way, is gorgeous) said they were going to start all over and build a brand new house in one week. Ok, that's pretty amazing. But then he said it was going to be a 3000 square foot house. I said, ok, I HAVE to see this.

With the help of 700 people from Centex homes, the Navy, and a lot of locals, they actually did it! The walls were all pre-made, some with siding attached, and the top portions were pre-assembled, some with shingles already in place. Each person from Centex had a printed shedule of what he was doing when. At one point during the process, they were actually two hours ahead of schedule!

But even though the actual building of the house was pretty mind-boggling, they were still going to decorate it. And not just trendy stuff....they personalized what they did for each person who would be living there. And this was still to fall within that one week deadline. One girl who liked to ski was given a bedroom with a lift chair in it! But it got even better.

The mom, before her husband died, had always planned to someday run a B&B, and of course this was impossible after the house burned down. The host decided to add a separate wing to the house with two amazing bedrooms that would be the start of a B&B. I was totally sucked into the show at this point.

So the family returns to see this amazing house that has been built, and everyone's crying tears of joy, and I'm thinking how awesome and generous this is, and then there are MORE surprises. Centex provides insurance for the new house, and even more awesome, PAYS OFF the old mortgage! And the crowning touch, SCHOLARSHIPS for the girls so they can go to college! Now THAT'S tv worth watching. Inspiring.

I'm hoping this show is on regularly on Sunday nights because I will actually make an effort to watch it if it is. I'm trying to remember the last time I was enthusiastic about something primetime network besides a comedy or a game show, and it has been at least 10 years. Finally.